We finished the campaign last night. The group looted the bodies, removed the corrupted beacon from a stalagmite, and evacuated to their Magnificent Mansion up above. They swayed hearts and minds and managed to rescue about twenty folk who had followed the call of Ceratos to Miskath Pit. Only slight mishaps on the teleportation spells, and a little more wild magic, but nothing major. All in all, a successful end to their final mission.
We went around for “what’s next” for everyone. Folks taking up world travel, continuing on with the Slayer’s Take, wrapping up some backstory elements, or just running away to live in the woods. The gnomes had the most active retirement plans. The Hexblood going back and talking to Isharnai, who offered him more power, and he said not yet. She was content with not yet, but I offered the player that he could take her as a Warlock patron, or eventually become a hag himself. The other gnomes went back home to play jokes, party and get the warrant taken care of. The Autognome’s autonomy being acknowledged, and Mimi’s parents apologizing (in writing) for her sister’s behavior, and saying they’re happy for her finding a good life elsewhere.
Just to have a hook later, I sent Jonas a letter about his sisters also joining the Cerberus Assembly, with hints that the experiment to “make” echo knights has continued. This may be a short marathon later on. Perhaps they could be of help to Beau and Caleb, but I’m not even sure how that would all work. Well, plenty of time to figure that out.
After, I asked for feedback. Everyone really enjoyed the game and getting to know the world. Said I did a good job of wrapping up threads, even if the group didn’t make it in time to wrap them up themselves. They liked the living world – things happening even when they weren’t there, or because of things they did. We talked about the fights being a difficult balance because of our couple of super heavy fighters, making everyone else support staff and different ways to handle that. One suggested that he felt I could probably do more improvising and less notes, but that’s a method thing. I was, by the end, a lot more comfortable going off the cuff, and probably did more than they realized. They also said they really liked how I dealt/kept up with their chaos, and adapted the written module to their play style.
All in all, a success. Now to take a nice break and just play a changeling for a while. Then pick up my copy of Tal’Dorei Reborn to start thinking of the next campaign, or figure out how to run a marathon against the Assembly. As they said, I’m in the DM rotation now.